Public online open innovation (OI) platforms, widely used across countries, allow communities to participate in OI processes by sharing innovative ideas about specific problems. Knowledge creation and OI are related. To implement an innovative solution, new knowledge must be created. Previous studies have discussed knowledge creation and OI in the context of organisational teams in business, but knowledge creation by communities in the context of public OI platforms has received little attention. The socialisation, externalisation, combination and internalisation (SECI) model is a well-known model that embodies the knowledge-creation process. The OI process involves determining community needs, identifying themes, identifying a community problem, posting that problem on a platform, sharing innovative ideas for solutions, selecting the best solutions and implementing and diffusing the solution to the community. This study applied a multi-case approach to investigate how knowledge was created by communities through an OI process based on the SECI model. Data were collected by conducting in-depth interviews with leaders of two different OI platforms in two countries. Deductive analysis was utilised to clarify the OI process used by each platform and the relationship between the processes and the SECI model. The findings revealed that the OI process applied by public OI platforms follows the SECI structure. This means that innovative solutions created by communities represent tacit knowledge, which is turned into explicit knowledge and then becomes tacit knowledge again. The developed conceptual framework can facilitate the application of OI through the knowledge creation model and enhance understanding of community knowledge creation

The ever-increasing market turbulence has turned today’s corporate landscape more competitive and complex. Particularly during the last two decades, the increased utilization of Information & Communication Technologies (ICTs) globally transformed the services sector in terms of ease of business processes and improved client service delivery. However, in the current knowledge-based era, these tools & technologies would only be meaningful if these are appropriately utilized by a knowledgeable workforce. In other words, this knowledge age has changed the success mantra of business competitiveness by re-shifting the focus from ICT-based transformations to knowledge-based transformations, though the availability of ICT systems has further augmented the organizational capabilities. Moreover, truly capitalizing on these warrants a knowledge-enabled work culture and recognizing as such the strategic significance of in-house Intellectual Capital (IC) that serves as a prime mover of achieving a sustainable competitive advantage. However, the maximum potential of IC for deriving multi-stakeholder value has not been fully achieved. Therefore, by administering 12 face-to-face semi-structured interviews at Australian Professional Service Firms (PSFs), this research offers a novel perspective on IC valuation by presenting the concept of ‘Triple Value Bottomline’ coupled with ‘IC Best Practices for PSFs’. These collectively offer IC evaluation, measurement and management mechanisms. Overall, the findings reveal immense potential of IC for achieving diverse value outcomes for multi-stakeholders in PSFs.

System design is an essential subject taught in information systems and has become a core course in its curriculum. Unified modelling language (UML) has been broadly adopted, and it is common to support the system design process using different diagrams. Each diagram serves a purpose by focusing on a specific part of a particular system. Design consistency ensures a seamless process, as the diagrams are generally interrelated. However, creating a well-designed system takes a lot of work, especially for university students with work experience. To overcome this challenge, aligning the concepts across diagrams is essential, which can help achieve better consistency and management of the design system, especially in an educational setting. This article is an extension of our previous work, as we have discussed a simple scenario of Automated teller machines to demonstrate the alignment concepts between UML diagrams. From a more technical perspective, the current contribution provides a Java program that aligns concepts by converting text-based use cases to text-based sequence diagrams. Then, the text is transformed in PlantUML to generate its graphical representation. The developed alignment tool is expected to contribute to helping students and instructors during the system design phases to be more consistent and practical. Limitations and future work are presented.

This research explores how the cloud’s technological capability helps small and medium enterprises (SMEs) adapt to challenging business environments, providing long-term sustainability and strategic agility. The article uses a theoretical and quantitative empirical approach, known as the positivist research paradigm, in offering a unique capability called dynamic cloud capability that leverages the cloud’s technological capabilities. Based on the quantitative analysis of 222 Australian Information and Communication Technology (ICT) SMEs, dynamic cloud capability favourably improves the flexible allocation of resources (resource fluidity) and the ability to adapt business models (strategic agility). Additionally, because of the successful mediating effect of resource fluidity, it is inferred that dynamic cloud capability allows for the flexible allocation of resources leading to improved strategic agility. Hence, adopting dynamic cloud capability in an organisation’s strategy would be particularly appealing to ICT SMEs as it has been verified to enhance adaptability to a challenging business environment and flexible allocation of resources.

The Professional Service Firms (PSFs) have gained widespread attention owing to their enormous contribution to the growth of global service economies. PSFs being knowledge-intensive firms frequently encounter a challenge of continually enhancing the knowledge competencies of their staff that forms the basis of organizational Intellectual Capital (IC) and derives competitive advantage for them. Nevertheless, a little research has been done governing the development of knowledge capital in the PSFs. This makes the role of High Performance Work Systems (HPWS) indispensible towards managing intellectual capital resources in these firms. However, the systematic application of HPWS in PSF context is still lacking the empirical basis. Therefore, by presenting a qualitative conceptual framework, this research offers a linking mechanism on how HPWS guide IC development in the service firms. By empirically testing these HPWS as (Ability, Motivation, and Opportunity)-enhancing practices via face-face interviews, the results demonstrate that HPWS play strategically significant role in building knowledge capital in the PSFs. Overall, this research offers practical insights to the KM and HR managers in service firms on achieving client service quality and satisfaction through a knowledge-smart workforce and perpetuate a sustainable competitive advantage.

Technology has recently gained relevance within collaborative learning environments to provide robustness, agility and flexibility. Several recent studies have investigated the role of technology, as well as researchers have defined different metrics to assess learning outcomes and experience along the collaborative knowledge development process. More recently, technology has played a key role to face the new challenges related to COVID-19, which forced to move on remote or hybrid learning. This research focuses on the quality of learning experience in terms of academic performance and perceived satisfaction. From a methodological point of view, a conceptual framework has been proposed and a quantitative study has been conducted among undergraduate and postgraduate students that are undertaking programs related to System Design in Saudi Arabia universities. 152 responses have been collected through an online survey and analysed using SPSS and SmartPLS. Results show a positive impact of technology along the collaborative knowledge development process and a strong correlation among the different quality of learning experience parameters considered. Indeed, despite some challenges, an integrated use of technology seems to properly support the most pressing needs in terms of quality experience, while the well-known social/educational issues related to the COVID-19 pandemic are not object of this study. Those findings are expected to contribute to the Saudi Arabia's vision 2030 and, more holistically, to the assessment of collaborative learning environments that extensively rely on technology.

ENHANCING AND CONSOLIDATING REQUIREMENTS SPECIFICATION IN TEACHING SYSTEM DESIGN BY ALIGNING CONCEPTS FROM HETEROGENEOUS DIAGRAMS

Public online open innovation platforms allow a local community to be part of an open innovation process by sharing their innovative ideas about a specific problem. However, capturing community needs before problems are posted is an essential phase that is ambiguous in open innovation literature. In previous studies, open innovation on a community was applied by seeking innovative solutions without exploring ways to capture community needs as an initial phase before designing a product or service. This study explores this missing step in the literature and asks how community needs are captured before selecting a specific problem to be posted on the platform. Semi-structured interviews area carried out with two different open innovation platforms teams in two countries. Thematic analysis is utilised to highlight the procedures used to capture community needs through an open innovation process. The study develops a revised open innovation process that can be followed to capture community needs in the context of open innovation.

The contribution of professional service firms (PSFs) has always been phenomenal in the knowledge economies. Given the ever-increasing focus on achieving knowledge-based trans-formations, the effectiveness of these firms is highly attributed to the knowledge capabilities embedded in their staff and how efficiently they are utilized in firm's optimal benefit. In view of growing services sector, it is vital for these firms to implement high performance work practices (HPWPs) so as to maintain high-quality services and meet competing client needs. However, the systematic implementation of these practices in the intellectual capital (IC) context is not fully developed. Hence, this research suggests a linkage mechanism on how HPWPs support IC development in the professional service firms. By operationalizing these practices as ability-, motivation-, and opportunity-enhancing bundles, the results indicate a positive effect on intellectual capital and the findings offer practical insights to the managers in service firms on building their knowledge capital and deriving competitive advantage.

Mobile Collaborative Learning (MCL) has recently caught the attention of the research community because of its potential impact on improving learners' effectiveness and performance. Nevertheless, to be really effective, the potential of MCL-based solutions is still largely unexplored, as well as further research is needed to develop improved learning environments. This literature review aims to discuss the possible impact of MCL, looking at a number of typical parameters, such as user satisfaction, perceived ease-of-use, perceived usefulness, impact on the affective and cognitive domain, and perceived enjoyment. The literature review has pointed out that, by adopting the MCL approach, learners improve their motivation, as well as their cognitive skills. It points out a positive impact also at an affective level. Additionally, we found that MCL currently targets education at any level, including university and school level. Last but not least, it seems to positively affect also learning outcomes, namely learners’ performance. On the negative side, the study found a lack of research attention on possible difficulties, constraints, and barriers. Finally, learning environments are expected to become more and more sophisticated in the next future (e.g. by using augmented reality), and mobile technology is expected to play an even more relevant role.

Design thinking has been increasingly used to craft innovative solutions to complex problems. It is a creative human-centred process that most often occurs through collaborative models. One such example is the Double Diamond model, which consists of four phases to discover, define, develop, and deliver solutions to the public sector. Open innovation is another method through which an organisation may acquire innovative ideas from external parties. It is also comprised of four main phases: idea generation, selection, development, and diffusion. In both public and private sectors around the world, online platforms allow citizens to share their innovative ideas. However, there is a lack of literature on how open innovation can be combined with design thinking processes to bring in external ideas. Design thinking research has been confined to a select type of stakeholder. Open innovation, on the other hand, is not restricted any one group. This study proposes two possible scenarios to integrate the Double Diamond model to apply the open innovation process through online platforms in public sector. The current research will use a qualitative method to test the proposed frameworks by conducting interviews with two open innovation teams in the Saudi public sector. The findings will elucidate how the open innovation process is applied to the Double Diamond model and assist future open innovation teams to use the both models.

1 Jouf University (SAUDI ARABIA) / University of Technology Sydney (AUSTRALIA)2 University of Technology Sydney (AUSTRALIA)